


trust the devil never to let go, mixing hell and romance just like any other fool

by drusillaes



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Hotel
Genre: Consensual But Not Safe Or Sane, Enemies to Lovers who are still kinda enemies, Eventual Smut, F/M, Murder, Pre-Apocalypse, Witches, but it's better than the minotaur shit, i mean it's ahs so it's going to be a twisted love story, post-Hotel, queenie deserves a love story goddamnit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-16 05:14:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19311355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drusillaes/pseuds/drusillaes
Summary: Queenie's always been good at loving monsters.And trapped eternally in the Hotel Cortez, there isn't much else to do.





	1. wolves shall croon in your merciless ear

“Let me out!” Queenie screams. She throws herself out a window and comes tumbling back into the same room via a laundry chute. “This isn’t fair! Let me go! Cordelia!”

“Your Supreme can’t hear you.”

Queenie spins at the accented voice. The son of a bitch who killed here leans elegantly against the wall, dark eyes amused at her plight.

“Let me out of here,” Queenie demands, and she’s proud of her voice for not wavering. She can still feel how it felt to die, the cold shock of his knife in her chest, her vision going red and then black as that skinny blood-whore crawled all over her like she was a dog and Queenie raw meat.

“No,” the man says, drawing out the word with relish. “Even if I could, I wouldn’t. You fascinate me, my dear. You have darkness in your blood.”

Queenie throws her hands up. “Yes, okay, I’m black! Is that the point you’re trying tomake? Because I spent enough of my life with racists, and I’m not going to spend my death with another one!”

“You misunderstand, darling.” His voice seeps out like oil. “I wasn’t referring to the color of your skin, but the color of your heart. You’re a truly wicked soul, aren’t you?”

She glares, but doesn’t answer. She wants to say no, she’s good, she’s a part of the Witch’s Council, she tried to bring Zoe back to life. But she also ripped a man’s still beating heart out of his chest for Marie Laveau, shot another man in the head with her powers, and she doesn’t so much as regret it.

“I thought so,” the powder-pale man says, and extends one gloved hand. The glove is white, but tinted pink around the edges of the fingers from Queenie’s blood. “James Patrick March.”  
Queenie wants to laugh hysterically. She wants to cry. She does neither.  
“Queenie,” she replies grudgingly, after a few moments pass. She doesn’t offer her hand, but March takes it anyway, presses a kiss to the back. “It is truly an honor to meet you, Queenie. I’ve never met a soul as dark as yours. Tell me,” his eyes glitter, and Queenie, despite being a city girl through and through, knows that this is what staring into snake eyes must feel like. “What _have_ you done to make your soul so deliciously evil?”

 

**_earlier_ **

“Are you sending me away because you’re scared of me?” Queenie demands. Cordelia looks as though she’s been slapped. “Queenie, you can’t possibly think that.”

“Really? I can’t? Because you’re not sending Zoe away, despite the shit _she’s_ done.”

“I thought you’d like a vacation, Queenie.” Cordelia’s eyes plead with her, _don’t press this._

Queenie doesn’t. “You better have enchanted my fucking ticket, bitch,” she snaps before she storms off.

 

**_now_ **

She hadn’t looked back at Cordelia again, and Queenie desperately wishes she had.

James Patrick March has produced a bottle of red wine and a pack of cards out of nowhere.

“We’ll drink and play and talk,” he says placatingly. “Come, sit.” He pulls out a chair, like a gentleman.

“Maybe I don’t want to.” Queenie feels like a child, but her defiance is all she has.

March looks at her pityingly. “My dear, you have nothing else to _do_.”

“Yeah? We’ll see about that.” Queenie storms out.

 

She finds some things to do. She tries shooting up with this creepy junkie ghost eternally trapped in the 90s, but she feels nothing.

“Is this working?”  
“It never works,” the ghost replies calmly. Her mouth is stained with lipstick that is so not her color. If Madison were here, she’d make fun of it. _Shit, I even miss Madison_.

“Then why do it?”

The ghost -Sally -shrugs and loads up another needle. “Habit, I guess. Something to do.”

 

“I hope you’re not harboring any ill will,” Liz Taylor tries. She looks gorgeous, eyeshadow glittering, chest heaving, fresh and beautiful and alive.

Queenie _hates_ her. “You killed me, bitch,” she snarls. “You sent me up there like a fucking gift for that vampire.”

Liz flinches. “Yes, well, we had to, you see…”  
“Save it,” Queenie juts her chin out and Liz is sent flying against the wall. “Get out while you still can.” Her threat is weak, Iris has already informed her that somebody called the Countess would make Queenie suffer if she truly hurt Liz, but Liz dutifully runs away anyway.

 

It’s 274 days and Queenie has exhausted any other option in the hotel, from playing with the pale-haired demon children and their bossy governess, to examining the trophies, to sorting through the Countess’s closet, when she returns to the room she’d been killed in.

James Patrick March is still there, with his bottle of wine and his deck of cards. He pops the bottle. “Shall we?”

 

Queenie sits.


	2. who is more a dragon or a danger? who's to say?

 

“So you ripped his heart out,” March says, satisfied. He deals a fresh hand. “Tell me how it felt to have it in your hands.”

“It was gross,” Queenie replies. She shuffles through her cards. “You ever held an organ in your hands?”

She means it sarcastically, but he replies, “Several, my dear,” with practically an evil villain mustache twirl, and she’s honestly not sure whether to shudder or to laugh.

“Who _are_ you anyway?” Queenie demands. “You own this hotel, right?”  
“I used to,” March replies, saccharine. His eyes glitter, as if excited Queenie’s taking an interest. “I _built_ this hotel, my dear. But after my wife betrayed me, I was forced to kill myself. Since then I’ve been here, training dark hearts to carry on my work.”

“Except me.” And shit, Queenie hates how that comes out sounding actually _offended_. Not angry at being murdered in cold blood, but _annoyed_ that she, what, hadn’t been chosen by some psychopathic serial killer?

Queenie had always wanted to be _wanted_ , first by Zoe and Cordelia, then by Marie Laveau, and she hates how apparent it is now.  
“Except you,” he agrees. “I told you, that was a matter of necessity only. And such a terrible shame. I’d never met a witch before much less a -what did you call it? A human voodoo doll?”

“Yeah. I hurt myself, and other people feel the pain,” Queenie says. She picks up three cards from the pile and tries not to let her disappointment at the draw show on her face. March chuckles.

 

 

Queenie has her first run-in with the Countess herself later that week. She keeps track of the days, scratching them into the wall behind bathtub with a knife.

“We all kept track of the days when we were first here,” Hypodermic Sally had said mournfully, showing Queenie the marks on her arms. “You get tired, after a while.”

The Countess is dressed in a shimmering turquoise dress when Queenie goes downstairs -she’s sitting by the bar with a dark-haired man and cooing into his ear. When she sees Queenie, her feline eyes light up.

“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced, my dear,” she purrs. “You’re one of the souls my husband trapped in here, aren’t you?”  
“Mrs. March?” Queenie asks hesitantly, and the Countess laughs airily but something in her eyes flashes _danger_ , like a coiled rattlesnake. “Countess Elizabeth Johnson,” she introduces, holding out a hand dripping with rings.

“Um, I’m Queenie.” Queenie takes the hand, shakes it. She’s gotten used to all the bad vibes in the hotel, but merely touching Countess Johnson fills her with a sudden wave of revulsion and she doubles over, retching.  
“Oh dear,” the Countess remarks detachedly. “Lachlan, go fetch my _husband_ , won’t you?”

The man at the bar nods hastily and scurries off. Queenie falls to the ground, the room around her spinning into a blur of red and gold -and the Countess, a blur of blonde and blue, looking at her as if she’s a fourth-grade science experiment somebody brought to NASA.

An eternity later, cold, dry hands are lifting Queenie upright, and at their touch a new pulse of dark, wicked energy races through Queenie and she moans in disgust, hurls her empty stomach onto the Countess’s shoes.

“James, get her away from here, please,” Queenie hears. She sees images of a torture room, men and women clawing at the walls, entombed in the hotel for life, just suffocating without needing to breathe, gasping eternally for air as bony fingers scrabble and scratch.

 _“They’re still here,”_ Queenie whispers, and then everything goes black.


End file.
